For the past 100 years “The Garden” has been the focal point of America’s sport world. Many of our country’s major sports events and championships have been presented there. I grew up with The Garden as the Meca of the sports world. Thus, imagine my surprise and pleasure when while I was living in the New York area a friend of mine who ran for the New York Athletic Club asked me if I would like to represent his team in the Melrose Games at The Garden. This track event served as the National Amateur Indoor Track and Field Championships.
It seems that his team did not at that time have a long jumper, an event that I had done well in while in college five years before, so my friend suggested me as a fill-in. I was, of course greatly excited by the opportunity even though I knew I was too far out of shape to do anything serious in this event. A chance to compete in The Garden, even though I knew I would not do well, was impossible to refuse. My friend provided me with a Participant’s Pass and I just walked into The Garden and went to the dressing room. After suiting up I walked out onto the track before 10,000 fans and started to get really excited.
For me my own event was not the main attraction. I jumped a bit over 20 feet, a couple feet less than what I had jumped in college, and surprisingly I did not come in last. My event was won by Paul Herman from NYU who jumped around 25 feet. For me the main event was the spectacle of the Garden itself, jammed full of cheering fans yelling for their particular favorite. I starred upwards in absolute awe and wonder. During the competition I stood about 10 feet from John Thomas of Boston University when he high jumped 7 feet for a new indoor world record, and a little further off when Perry O’Brien form USC broke the indoor shotput record. I must admit that I was quite dazed and in awe of the whole thing.
However, what I found to be the most interesting “event” was the challenge that all competitors faced in trying to stay out on the track to watch the various events close-hand. You see, the indoor track area was so small that some officials, in order to view the on-going events. all decked out in tuxedos, were assigned to walk around and shoo those of us who had already competed back into the locker-room to make room for the current events. One guy called these officials “Penguins” and that’s what they looked like, waddling around trying to shoo us off the floor inside the track. Of course, none of us who had already competed were about to give up our closeup view of the on-going events.
So I soon realized what the trick was. We simply stayed ahead of the Penguins as they waddled along, moving slowly around inside the track and then we had the best seats in the house. So this turned out to be one of the most interesting events of the night, this crowd of non-current participants staying ahead of the officials just far enough to remain “out of harm’s way”. This whole evening was truly one of the highlights of my athletic career, even though I did not do very well in my own event. To have actually competed in The Garden was indeed more than just memorable. The year was 1959.

Traditionally it has always been said that there are four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Today many scholars now want to speak of Five gospels, including the Gospel of Thomas. Robert Funk has headed up the research behind the idea of including the Gospel of Thomas among the New Testament canon (see his book The Five Gospels).. Personally I have never been much impressed with the case for including Thomas in the New Testament primarily because it does not claim to be an account of Jesus’ teachings and ministry pe se. My own concern here is with the traditional four plus the so-called “Q document”. This gives us six possible Gospels to read and ponder.
Incidentally, it should be noted that the Gospels of Mark and John contain no “Christmas Story”, nor does Mark say anything about Jesus’ resurrection. Both Luke and Matthew contain a good deal of material about Jerus’ supposed genealogy, although they do not always agree on the details thereof. Q has nothing to say about any of these topics. Mark’s style is always brief and “moving on”, while John frequently engages in heavy theological discussions.
Although the Q document per se has never been found, it can be deduced from the conflation of the passages in Matthew and Luke which are identical with each other, what is now called “Q”. Basically the so-called “Sermon on the Mount” (Matthew 5-7) much of which is repeated almost exactly verbatim in Luke 6, constitutes the majority of what scholars call the “Gospel of Q.” Thus by abstracting these passages from both Matthew and Luke we obtain the “Gospel of Q”. Clearly the authors of Matthew and Luke both incorporated these materials into their own Gospels.
Since both Matthew and Luke use Q and neither Mark nor John reference it, it seems clear that initially there was yet another original Gospel which scholars now call “Q” because Q is the first letter of the German word for “Source.” What I find significant about “Q” is that it consists of almost entirely the teachings of Jesus with which we are all familiar and nothing else. For me, then, this “document” comes the closest we can get to the original teachings of Jesus himself. Without multiple references to cosmic events and supernatural healings, the Gospel of Q gives us with a straight-forward account of Jesus’ basic teachings about how to relate ourselves to God and to each other.
Interestingly enough, Q contains a great many of what scholars have come to call Jesus’ “hard sayings” because they seem to run counter to common sense. For instance, he says: “Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who treat you badly.” (Q 14) And: “When someone strikes you on the right cheek, offer them the other, too. When someone takes your coat from you, let them have your shirt as well. Give to everyone who asks. And if someone robs you, don’t demand your property back.” (Q 15) Indeed, the entire Sermon on the Mount runs counter to very much of what most of us were taught about how to manage ourselves in daily life.
So, I am in favor of using the traditional four Gospels, but also paying special attention to Q as it can be discerned amidst the chapters of Matthew and Luke. There is a tone and spirit of the texts in Q that seem to me to go directly to the heart of what the person of Jesus was about. He was not about “pie in the sky bye and bye”, but he was about radical love in the here and now. Follow Q and you will be the closest to the “original teachings” of Jesus as one can get.